Computing

Computing

Dec 19th 2006
From The Economist print edition

IN OCTOBER, shortly after taking over as head of information technology (IT) at Arizona State University, Adrian Sannier gave the nod to his contact at Google, the internet giant known for its search engine, and with one flick of the proverbial switch 65,000 students had new e-mail accounts. Unlike the university's old system, which stores e-mails on its own server computers, the new accounts reside on Gmail, Google's free web-based service. Mr Sannier is not forcing anybody to change but has found that the students, many of whom were already using Gmail for their private e-mail, have been voluntarily migrating to the new service at a rate of 300 an hour. Crucially, they can take their “asu.edu” e-mail addresses with them.

The service, part of a bundle called “Google Apps for Your Domain” that also includes instant messaging (IM) and a web-based calendar, has not even been officially launched yet. It began running in a test (or “beta”) form in August. But Dave Girouard, the boss of Google's small but growing enterprise division, says that “tens of thousands” of organisations have already signed up to use Google's web-based tools in place of traditional in-house e-mail systems and other software. …